Even scantily-clad ladies of the dancehall need promotion, and in the heyday of the Moulin Rouge, they depended on street posters to get an audience and turn them into stars. “Posters of Paris: Toulouse-Lautrec and His Contemporaries,” the Dallas Museum of Art’s new exhibition exploring the color, size, and joie…
It’s the first day of early voting, and we all know what that means: We only have a few more weeks of watching Facebook clog up with unfunny Big Bird memes while your Twitter feed on debate night turns into the saddest open mic night ever. Seriously, I’m going to…
Every Texan’s favorite high-school football drama has been an amusing subplot in the presidential campaign ever since Mitt Romney co-opted Friday Night Light’s locker-room slogan: “Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can’t Lose.” The show’s creator didn’t approve; the author of the book upon which the show based did. And the Romney…
This is the beginning of our new series on Dallas nail artists, and we’re starting if off with a woman who will be difficult to top, Vanessa Quilantan. She’s known internationally as Pro Nail Princesa and will be featured in the upcoming documentary, Nailgasm. She’ll have her own studio someday,…
I am a nerd. Not the type to wear a shirt that says “Han shot first,” or the kind that says Klingon prayers before bed, but the kind that finds himself knee deep in a novel on a Friday night rather than ankle high in my own vodka-induced vomit. I’m…
Number 10 The Irving Convention Center was taken over by aliens, intergalactic heroes and nightmare-invading villains last weekend for Comic Con Fan Days. Cult superstars Stan Lee, Bruce Campbell and the man behind the sweaters and night terrors, Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger) drew in the metroplex’s most dedicated and costumed…
In Ink Spot, Amy Price stops strangers in Dallas to shoot, and learn about, their body art. Jeff Biehler, a 38-year-old bartender (at Billiard Bar and The Foundry) and guitarist for the trash metal band Maleveller, is actually sweeter than his tattoos might portray. On the top of Biehler’s right…
It’s his JFK moment, and local outsider artist Clay Stinnett is commemorating the day by adding flames to his collection of Big Tex paintings. He’s a huge fan of the iconic cowboy, and has been posting the pics on his Facebook page in rapid-fire progression. We got curious and emailed…
After a hiatus of several weeks, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and maestro Jaap van Zweden are back at the Meyerson this weekend with a program that, while lacking diversity and innovation, is a sonorous showcase. The concert is balanced but lengthy, with two 40-minute pieces anchoring each half of the…
ArtLoveMagic’s longest running exhibtion, Girl Show, unlatches its boudoir doors this Saturday, October 20. It’s grown so much in five years that the all-female populated and operated art and music festival has had to plant a sloppy farewell kiss on Life in Deep Ellum, and return to the larger venue…
This weekend, several local classical music organizations are kicking off their 2012/2013 seasons with great concerts in a variety of venues. Here are five of your best bets for hearing beautiful art music around the metroplex this weekend: 1. Free Chamber Music at the Dallas Museum of Art The Fine…
NUMBER NINE: By Artist Miggy Aguilar Live Fast/Die Slow, the visual component to 45 Fest, opened last night. It’s made up of 37 pieces, each designed by local artists attempting to capture the spirit of the band Spector 45. The winning work will be used as the album art for…
In The Parent Crap, Alice Laussade chronicles life as a mom in Dallas. Worried you’re screwing up your kid? Tweet questions to @thecheapbastard and she’ll confirm that, yes, you’re screwing up your kid. Being a mom is amazing. It’s a gift. But parenting blows. You’re being a mom when you’re…
Cable channel HGTV goes big and goes Home, Strange Home with the new show about odd domiciles and the people who dwell in them. Premiering at 8 p.m., Friday, the weekly series starts with a visit to Carlos Cardoza’s “Mod House,” a mid-century gem in North Dallas decorated retro style,…
BRUCE CAMPBELL WILL BE AT COMIC CON THIS WEEKEND, AND SO WILL STAN LEE! Alright Dallas, I hope you took a powernap and squirreled away a minibar’s worth of 12-hour energy drinks, because you’ll need your A-game to conquer this jampacked weekend. We’ve got Bruce Campbell, Stan Lee and folks…
Every Thursday we highlight the best comedy of the coming weekend. Find more comedy events at dallasobserver.com/calendar. Louis CK at the Majestic Theatre When you hear “red hair,” “pasty gut” and “so funny I almost hyper-ventilated” in the same sentence, there’s only one name that comes to mind: Louis mother-fucking…
Ah, autumn. The leaves are falling, and so are the costumes in Uptown Players’ adults-only musical Hello Again. Now steaming up the Kalita Humphreys Theater, composer-lyricist Michael John LaChiusa’s singing humpfest, getting its local premiere, shows off some of Dallas musical theater’s finest voices and the bodies that hold them…
This week’s Paranormal Activity 4 continues the story of an extended American family whose members own a lot of surveillance cameras, camcorders, smartphones, baby monitors, webcams, Talkboys and other consumer electronic devices with which they record the haunting of their homes by a terrifying demonic entity. The original Paranormal Activity,…
English filmmaker Andrea Arnold’s atypical, impressionistic approach to Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights is her adaptation’s main hook. As with Fish Tank and Red Road, Arnold’s last two feature-length dramas, the new Wuthering Heights is very much about the act of looking. The novel’s tempestuous plot is unmercifully filtered through the…
“Positive characterizations are complex characterizations,” says writer-director Ava DuVernay, tucking into a serving of roasted potatoes. “That’s all we need to know. They shouldn’t be saccharine. They shouldn’t feel like medicine. You know, often films that are deemed positive, nobody wants to see them.” It’s a recent Sunday afternoon, and…
Short films rarely get the attention they deserve. Which is odd, considering the average person’s attention span is fairly … [leaves to check Twitter feed]. Sorry, what were we saying? Right. If you’re looking for a few good shorts, then the best place to catch them is at a festival…
It’s been two years since word spread through Dallas that one of the city’s brightest, most beloved musicians, Frankie Campagna, had committed suicide. Then, doubling the pain’s weight we saw his Spector 45 bandmate, bassist Adam Carter, follow suit only three months later. It made public a union that’s existed…
